Nationality: United StatesExecutive summary: Certain that oil is not a fossil fuel

As an astronomer and physicist, Thomas Gold has grown famous over the years for a variety of bold theories that flout conventional wisdom. His most recent claim garnering skeptical attention is the theory of the The Deep Hot Biosphere (1999) which claims that petroleum is not the decayed remains of decayed biological material, but is rather a primordial hydrocarbon which exists in even greater abundance at deeper levels, within the Earth's mantle.

Gold accounts for the existence of biologic material within this hydrocarbon by positing the existence of bacteria-like organisms which can thrive under extreme conditions and feed off of hydrocarbons. Although mainstream geologists continue to scoff, biologists are now studying similar organisms (immune to extreme temperatures) which were discovered during the drilling of super deep wells and mines.

Earlier controversies have included his intepretation of pulsars, as emissions from neutron stars with strong magnetic fields (later accepted as wholly accurate), and his postulation -- along with Bondi and Hoyle -- of Steady State theory (once widely accepted but now largely rejected in favor of the Big Bang theory).

Although popular accounts often attribute Gold with falsely predicting that Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would find the lunar surface coated in a thick layer of dust, which could cause them to sink over their heads, he denies ever making such a claim, arguing his views were misrepresented in the press.

Gold's theory of the deep hot biosphere holds important ramifications for the possibility of life on other planets, including seemingly inhospitable planets within our own solar system. He was Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Cornell University and founded (and for 20 years was director of) the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research. Gold is credited with 280 publications in various fields of science, including cosmology, mechanism of mammalian hearing, nature of pulsars as rotating neutron stars, aspects of solar system research, origin of planetary hydrocarbons.